The Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

   “Only that you should switch identities for a time. Well, the plan succeeded, though I never should have trusted him.” Then I bit my lip, recalling whom I had chosen to trust.

   “Whatever else he may be, Watson, Count Dracula is a man of honor—a rarity in this day and age, and perhaps in any. We had a strong common ground in our enemies; once I had made sure of that, I knew the gamble was worthwhile. Dracula, his eyebrows and hair trimmed and darkened, and with a few other touches from my make-up box, remained in our apartment wearing my clothing, to let himself be kidnapped and taken to the enemy headquarters, where the men he yearned to destroy were most likely to come within his grasp.”

    I shuddered.

   “I shall lose no sleep over their fate, Watson, whatever it may have been. But I confess that I never expected you to be taken with him, and I had a bad moment or two when I learned of your abduction. The Count was willing to gamble that the means of kidnapping would do him no serious harm; it was a much longer chance that you took so unknowingly. I was much relieved when Mrs. Harker’s guarded telephone message came to me, through the police, telling me that you were at least still alive.”

   “Ah. But how did you know that our chief enemy was Seward? And that when he came to our rooms it would be to kidnap you rather than to kill you outright?”

   “My dear Watson, the next time you attempt to drug one of your patients with curried chicken, it would be well to choose a subject not yet out of his first childhood, or else far gone into his second.”

   “Holmes, I—”

   He waved me to silence. “I was not certain whether this move was your own idea, or—you have never done anything of the kind before—whether it might have been suggested by some seeming friend with an ulterior motive. I pretended to sleep late, but was nevertheless up in good time to eavesdrop on your entire conversation in our rooms with Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming. This gave me no reason to suspect the latter, but it strongly aroused my suspicions against Seward. When I came out into the sitting-room later, I took the liberty of stumbling against you in my bemused state, and emptied your pocket—I know in which one you always carry pills—of Seward’s gift. A little chemical analysis, and I was certain of my foe, though I still had not a shred of evidence against him save for the pill itself. The drug was an East Indian one, unlikely to be fatal but producing a violent temporary madness. Sir Jasper Meek confirmed my findings. You were meant to give it to me, then call in Seward for more help. He would thus be enabled to interrogate me at his leisure in his stronghold at Purfleet. Now I knew he did not intend to kill me outright. I replaced the pill with a harmless substitute, put the box back into your pocket...”

   “Holmes, I must apologize.”

   “It is not at all necessary. If your plan unintentionally endangered my life, so did mine accidentally place yours in peril.”

   “How did you work out your plan with Dracula?”

   “Well, he and I pushed his great box up onto the roof, out of sight, so he might appear to have taken it away. We disarranged the sitting-room to suggest struggle or flight. Then, while I was busy with our disguises, the Count had time to tell me where the enemy had formerly kept their headquarters. Leaving him dressed in some of my clothing, I went out through our old second exit, that served us so well, as you must recall, in the recovery of the Mazarin Stone. I was thus free to take effective action in the field, against an enemy who thought me safely out of his way.

   “Once I had found the abandoned building described to me by the Count, and entered it, inspection soon convinced me that the abandonment could be no more than temporary. In particular, I had been intrigued by Dracula’s mention of rats that he heard there on his second visit. Now, men experimenting with transmission of plague by means of rats would hardly have allowed their laboratories to be so casually infested.

   “I searched, and on a lower level, which the Count had not bothered to look at, I found hundreds of brown and black rats caged. Food and water had been provided for them, yet there was evidence of sickness, and I did not go too close. I hastened instead to enlist the help of Sir Jasper, and the faithful Lestrade. I am happy to report that the cages and their contents were drenched in carbolic and incinerated, shortly after being inspected for the last time by one of their owners, the late Dr. Fitzroy. Lestrade and I followed him back to Purfleet, while he thought himself secure.”

   For a while we both were silent, as our cab labored forward in the morning traffic. Then stubbornly I came back to my subject.

   “I admit, Holmes, that I may owe the Count my life. But I think he would as cheerfully have killed me, had I stood in his way. Holmes, the man is still at large, and he—he is a vampire.”

   “Ha! You saw enough, did you, to convince yourself of that? Perhaps someday I shall ask to hear all the details.” Holmes folded his arms and sat back, softly whistling something from a French opera. His manner was, it seemed to me, very strangely altered from that of recent days; he could now speak lightly, almost frivolously, of this being whose mere existence had seemed likely to drive him mad.

   I began another protest, which he interrupted. “So,